Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Google and Page Rank

So how do I know that I’m ranking well in Google? Or that anything I’m doing with regards SEO is making changes or having a beneficial effect ? Well, there are a few little tools to help you know this. Google has it’s own ranking system which it gives to each website it visits. This is called a Page Rank, or PR, and is marked from 1 – 10. There are very few PR10 sites, and even excellent quality websites, such as bbc.co.uk are only PR8. The majority of sites are PR0 that exist on the internet. An average site should be looking for a PR4.
Search Engine Optimisation Barcelona - Page Rank

The best way to check a page's Page Rank is to download the Google Toolbar.
It is difficult to ascertain what Google uses to classify your site and give it it’s PR number. However, there are various things which could contribute. Site age is a benefit (the date your domain name went live) – the older the better, but be aware that often a server migration could affect the PR, as Google will recognise this as a “new site”. The content of your site and the quality of the content is also important. Betting, Gambling, Porn or Adult sites are therefore very difficult for Google to “like”. Where your page links to and who links back to you is an important factor. As a rule, don’t link to any “bad neighbourhoods” (Google’s terminology), and try and link to relevant sites to your own’s content. A site which is constantly updating with rich, quality text is also a benefit and if it receives lots of visitors or “hits” then this is also a very positive influence (see my earlier example of bbc.co.uk).

Another way to see if the changes you are making are having an effect on your ranking is to before you start, check where you rank for the phrases or keywords you are targeting and then compare this on, say, a monthly basis. If you know sufficient to make changes to your own website, you can also install the tracking code from Google Webmaster Tools, which will then give you detailled information about your visitor stats, any problems within your website as a whole, and other intersting statistics. I will delve more into the benfits of webmaster tools at a later date.

Barcelona Online Marketing

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